Chinese Police Detain Outspoken Uyghur Activist

January 16, 2014 06:45 GMT

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Chinese Police Detain Outspoken Uyghur Activist

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The wife of an outspoken scholar from China's Uyghur ethnic minority says police have raided their home and taken her husband away -- seizing computers, cellphones, and his students' theses in the operation.

Ilham Tohti's wife, Guzaili Nu'er, said on January 16 that about 30 police officers raided their apartment in Beijing and detained her husband.

She said the six-hour operation was launched on the afternoon of January 15.

Tohti is a 45-year-old economics professor at Beijing University.

He has strongly criticized the policies of China's ruling Communist Party, including its treatment of ethnic Uyghurs, who are predominantly Muslim and are concentrated in China's far western region of Xinjiang.

The vast Xinjiang region borders Central Asia and has been hit by a series of violent clashes in recent years that have been blamed by China's government on "terrorists."